Month: January 2019

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD WANTS TO CHANGE THE RULES

Challenging the norms of another country’s national sports is always asking for trouble.  But the weekend’s Patriots versus Chiefs championship game ended on such a note of anti-climax that it cannot go unremarked.  The way in which tied matches are decided in over-time does no justice to the talent in the game.

The stakes were heightened by the star quarterbacks on each side.  Legendary, multiple Super Bowl ring winner Tom Brady against young gun, superstar Patrick Mahomes.  The sherrif was in town and the kid was itching for a fight.

It was an attritional game with flashes of brilliance on all sides which is everything you could hope for.  The two slugged it out toe to toe for four quarters and with just ten seconds left in the game the Chiefs tied the scores.  High drama to be followed by total disatisfaction that left a new observer of the game cold.

The method of settling the game is that each side gets a possession and the chance to score unless a touchdown is scored by the team with first possession.  If the scores are equal after a possession each it becomes ‘sudden death’ with the next score winning the game.  And the first possession is determined by the toss of a coin. 

The Patriots won the coin toss and marched down the field to score a touchdown.  There was no opportunity for the Chiefs or their quarterback to respond with their own touchdown.  And that is where the problem lies.

Imagine a world heavyweight boxing match where the scores are tied at the end of the allotted twelve rounds.  To decide the fight a coin is tossed and the loser is not allowed to throw a punch for the next three rounds.  If he is knocked down he loses.

Or a tied game in a World Cup Final between Portugal and Argentina.  On the flip of a piece of metal, it is decided that Messi can’t play in the first half of extra-time and if Portugal score the game is over.  As Ronaldo wheels to celebrate his success the sight of the world’s other greatest player on the sidelines would be heartbreaking.

Defence may win championships but most fans clamour for the thrill of creative players doing amazing things.  They want the joy of enterprise and the jubilation of scoring.  To have a system where one side can be deprived of that makes little sense.

It’s even worse in a game which is a series of set-pieces and where first-mover advantage is in favour of the team in possession.  Alex Lalas noted that a free-kick in soccer is ‘probably the closest thing we have to American football’.  An increasing number of goals in soccer are coming from set-plays as coaches understand the advantage it gives them in a game which is otherwise almost entirely random.   

This advantage in American Football is borne out by the statistics.  According to Football Outsiders statistics Drive Success Rate (DSR), which measures the percentage of down series that result in a first down or touchdown, no team is successful less than 60% of the time.   In 2018 the Patriots had a season DSR of 73.9% and the Chiefs a DSR of 80%.

In short, you would expect the Patriots to complete a first down most of the time they are in possession.   And some excellent statistical work by Brian Burke indicates that, wherever on the field a drive starts it is more likely to end in a touchdown than a field goal.  None of this takes away from the quality of the Patriots’ execution in a pressure situation but it shows how the balance of probability adds up.

But the point is that the Chiefs did not get a chance to respond which short-changed the paying public.  I am told that before a rule change it was even worse, with only a field goal being needed to win in overtime. It’s a version of the dreaded ‘golden goal’ tried in soccer until being dropped in 2004 – I like to think because rule-makers realised it was dumb.

In every sport I can think of, where a definitive result is necessary, the teams battle it out on a blow for blow basis until the end.  Baseball can go on for hours and hours and innings after innings.  Football has resorted to penalty shoot-outs which at least equalises the pressures and skill levels of the teams.

And that is probably where American Football should go.  Maybe they give each side two ‘mini-quarters’ of, say, three minutes, with no time-outs, to score.  Once they score, a field goal or touchdown, or lose possession they hand the ball over to the opposition.  If the scores are level at the end of that, the game goes to field goal kicking of increasing lengths until one misses while the other scores.

Or they could simply move to the NCAA college rules where each team is, in succession and with no time limit, given the ball on the 25 yard line. After the first team completes its drive with a score or turnover, the opposing team has the same opportunity. If the teams are still tied after the second team’s possession, they must play another period until a winner emerges.

Neither is perfect but both mean that each side has an equal chance to win.  The game is eventually settled on a test of skill rather than fortune.  And the tension would be unbearable to the very end.  Perfect.

An Englishman Abroad Struggles With Sporting Conventions

It’s play-off and championship season in the National Football League and I am riveted by the mass of information on the TV screen.  There’s the score, the time, which quarter the game’s in, the number of yards needed and which down it is.  It’s a lot to take in but I remain baffled as to why the home team’s name comes second on the screen.

A lifetime in the UK has been based upon the immutable law that when a match is promoted and shown the home team’s name is first.  It makes sense because the game is at their stadium and it’s a reminder of home advantage.  It is very disorienting to have this turned on its head for no good reason.

The argument from American friends is that it is to reinforce the spoken version.  So it’s “the Steelers at the Patriots” and they seem equally bemused by my concern.  It’s common to American sports from basketball to baseball to hockey but it is as strange to a resident alien as some of the spelling. 

It might help if the American sports had proper knock-out cup competitions because it seems inconceivable that you would draw the away team out of the hat first.  But there was incredulity when I described a competition where pure chance might pit the might of Premier League Champions against the humblest of pub teams.  There is no equivalent here to the televisual genius of watching faded, mumbling players of yesteryear plucking swirling numbered balls blindly from a rotating device that has been borrowed from the local Bingo hall.

The ‘oooing’ and ‘aaaing’ and sharp intakes of breath as particularly juicy ties are drawn is a staple of being a fan of English football.  It’s matched by the camera in the clubhouse of some non-league upstarts looking to make an impression on the shins of an overpaid, over-tattooed and overrated Premier League star.  They may themselves be overweight, overworked and, er, over-tattooed but this is their moment in the sun.    

Everything about the FA Cup speaks to the principles of a working class game that has spawned decades of clichés. It’s eleven against eleven, a game of two halves and a pitch recently cleared of cow pats is a great leveller.   Nobody wants to play against Clogger United on a frosty, January night but it’s a reminder of the days when players caught the local bus to the stadium and drank a pint or four with the fans after the game (and sometimes before).     

It seems to me that the lack of decent cup competition is against the very spirit of the United States and I’d venture, without any genuine understanding, that it is likely to be unconstitutional.  This is supposed to be the land of opportunity where every child has the chance to become President and where Supreme Court Justices vehemently declare their love of beer.  Surely there has to be a space for the town of Gonzales, Louisiana, the ‘jambalaya capital of the world’, to form a team called the Gophers and take homefield advantage to give Bill Belichick’s all conquering New England Patriots a bloody nose.

When I raised the possibility it was suggested that the entire Gophers squad would be hospitalised in the first quarter by the superior physical qualities of the visiting supermen.  But anybody who saw Division 2 Sunderland beat the mighty Leeds United in the FA Cup Final, or savoured Southern League Herford’s win against the, then high-flying, Newcastle United, knows that dreams never die.  A ruptured spleen and complex fractures of every limb seem a small price to pay for a shot at glory.

It’s always good to have a theme so if I’m obliged to start a campaign my intention would be to invoke the spirit of the Rocky’s – Balboa and Marciano – and the formidable peak peaks of the Rockies – Elbert and Massive.  Warming to the task I’d eat Rocky Road ice cream (invented in California in 1929), wear Rocky boots (from Ohio since 1932) and sing Rocky Mountain Way by Joe Walsh (born in Kansas 1947) as my closer.

I put the whole fear of being beaten by part-timers down to another unfathomable thing about American sports – there is no promotion or relegation.  For a land which consistently harps on about winners being first and losers being nowhere this rather softens the blow of not being good enough.  No chance of going down or up, or facing ‘Nutter’ Smith in the backfield during a tricky cup match, means that the players can coast indefinitely.

The weakness of some of the groupings in the NFL’s structure of eight, four-team divisions grouped in two conferences has been recognised.  An example is the NFC East where the New England Patriots have topped the table 16 times in the last 18 years.  The advantage is that you get a week of rest and then homefield advantage against a ‘wild card’ team.

Talking of the Patriots reminds me of another strange thing about American football.  Each team gets to use their own balls when they are on offense (or attack in English parlance).  This led to the famous ‘deflategate’ scandal where the Patriots were accused of under-inflating their balls.  It was January 2015 and they were playing the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship game.

The referees seemed not to notice at the time which is not surprising because their ‘ruling on the field’ is overruled by video review with astonishing regularity. It may also be because they are dressed in replica Newcastle United shirts and throw yellow dusters around when they spot an infringement. It’s like watching the Toon Army take up Morris Dancing with Molly Maid Home Cleaning Services.

It’s difficult for me to get excited about the scandal because the thought of teams being able to change the ball just because they are in possession is bizarre.  But I do laugh at the thought of running a rugby game in the same way.  Imagine stopping some lumpen Welsh flanker with cauliflower ears and a broken nose, who has just turned over a ruck-ball by stomping all over the head of an English fly-half. 

Referee: “Sorry, old chap, but it’s your turn to attack now so you need to stop for a moment and play with your own ball.” Flanker: Makes unintelligible, sub-human noises due to fractured septum, mud up the nostrils, multiple concussions and an ill fitting gum-shield over teeth already needing complete reconstructive surgery. Referee: “Good man, tha……” before the rest of the conversation is lost as the unfortunate official being trampled by what the late Bill McLaren might have called, ‘twenty stone of the finest, Welsh livestock on the hoof’.

And with that I am immediately looking forward to the first day of the new six-nations championship on 1 February and the opportunity to indoctrinate friends here about the virtues of rugby.  Dark-arts in the scrum, pace and power set against speed and strength, and the ultimate in physical confrontations without padding.  There is nothing quite like it and I am hoping that the screen will show the home team first – just like it should be.   

GOOD NEWS – FOR SOME – IN UK INTERNATIONAL ENROLMENT 2017/18

The latest HESA release showing enrolments in UK institutions for 2017/18 show a welcome increase in international enrolments.  Digging under the surface suggests that the trends of the past five years are getting reinforced.  The big brands are doing well and there are a couple of well organised outliers.

Table 6 of the HESA data allows us to look at total enrolments by individual institution which gives a good sense of who is able to replace students leaving the university with new enrolments as competition increases.  Looking at the total enrolments also gives a better sense of what might be happening to tuition revenue.  The table shows that total international enrolments have gone up by 3.8% from 307,540 to 319,340 – that’s 11,800 students.

Ten institutions absorbed 7,320 additional students with the Russell Group universities taking eight of the ten places. In terms of ‘branding’ the 24 Russell Group universities added 10,230 students overall.  De Montfort continues its remarkable performance in international recruitment and that’s great credit to the focus and discipline of the management team. 

The performance of the University of the Arts is also very strong.  Looking at the Annual Report the university is showing a 19.8% increase in international fee income for the year in question – from £86m to £103m.  It’s a strong and differentiated higher education brand in one of the world’s most culturally vibrant cities and looks to be leveraging those benefits

Table 1 – Top Ten Universities for Increases In Total International Enrolments (Non-EU) 2017/18

This lop-sided distribution of growth inevitably means that some universities did less well.  Those showing the largest losses may all have strategic reasons for reducing international numbers but that seems the least likely explanation.  The universities Sheffield Hallam, Hull, Sunderland and Greenwich were all identified as being in long-term decline in international enrolments in my blog Winning And Losing In Global Recruitment back in April 2018.

Table 2 – Top Ten Universities for Decreases In Total International Enrolments (Non-EU) 2017/18

While international enrolments reflect global competitiveness they should be seen in the context of wider recruitment issues in the sector.  Lower ranked universities are already being squeezed by the bigger and better placed universities when it comes to recruiting home-students.  It’s a painful double-whammy for some institutions as they face into the Augar Review and the Government’s thinking on post-school education.

Universities: ‘A Common Treasury’ For The Knowledge Economy

For several decades UK higher education has been a battleground for short-term thinking, abdication of responsibility and political point scoring.  But Phil Baty of the THE recently that the UK HE sector has been the subject of an unusually intense barrage of bad headlines.  This is often part of the softening up process before a government intervenes with its latest ideologically driven initiatives.

The ‘independent’ trigger may be the Augar Review which is part of the government’s current review of post-18 education.  The Review themes of choice, value for money, access and skills provision offer cover for significant intervention in the sector.  There are many areas where universities do each of these things well but the very notion of autonomous, self-governing institution does not give it an easy time in assembling a coherent, sector-wide response.

More worryingly, the review’s focus on ‘wage returns’ picks a battleground where universities have probably relied too long on distorted ‘average earnings of graduates’ to defend themselves.  Alongside attacks on pay levels of Vice-Chancellors, unconditional admissions and grade inflation, the sector is painted as being self-serving, complacent and out of touch with its student customers or employers’ needs.  It is painful to watch at a moment when the UK needs to defend its reputation for quality higher education against global competition rather than have a firing squad in an inward-facing circle.

In thinking about the future of the sector I was reminded of the ideas of Gerrard Winstanley, the ideological driver of the True Levellers (commonly known as the Diggers) in the late 1640s who saw the land as a ‘common treasury for all’.  Their attempt to implement his ideas of a Utopian society based on common ownership of the land and shared purpose in meeting the needs of all was suppressed by the government of the day.  But in a global knowledge economy it seems to me that universities have a strong claim to be today’s ‘common treasury for all’.

Taking this as my starting point I offer my own version of steps that might help build a better integrated and more stable higher education sector:

1.           An Independent ‘Bank Of Education’ To Oversee Quality, Relevance and Cost

Independent central banks emerged in many developed countries because the economy is too important to place all the levers in the hands of transient governments.  The same is true of education but the sector is also too important to have the rights and needs of students as the only consideration.  The Bank of England’s mission is ‘Promoting the good of the people of the United Kingdom by maintaining monetary and financial stability’ and that is the breadth required by a ‘bank of education’ freed from political interference.            

2.           If One Pays Then Everyone Should Pay

I have always believed that education is a common good and should be free.  If that cannot be the case then it seems illogical to have arbitrary cut off points to begin repaying student loans.  Every graduate should begin, on a sliding scale, to repay their student loan from the moment they begin earning a salary.  It would mean every graduate can say they are giving back – even if it is only pennies – in line with the benefit they receive.  Every graduate gets treated the same with a straight deduction from earned income without external contributions or the ability to pay the debt early. 

3.           The Beneficiaries Of An Educated Workforce Should Pay More And Get Involved

The data on pay suggests that graduates do not always get premium ‘wage returns’ but in principle employers should always benefit from a better educated workforce and the burden of funding should reflect that.  Several writers have noted that the model provided by the Apprenticeship Levy has potential for higher education and the notion of hypothecated funding seems attractive.  But a slogan from the 1700s, no taxation without representation, is a good reminder that employers should also have a right, indeed should be obliged, to support and guide university activities.

4.           A Strategy For UK Education As A Major Economic Asset

Governments around the world, particularly in recent years China, Canada and Australia, have demonstrated that a joined-up approach to higher education can be of significant economic benefit.  Even without UK government help, well-ranked institutions have shown that at both an international and country level that they can monopolise declining or static pools of potential students.  Whether the future is in building global super-brands or allowing weak players to fail a coherent, data-led and output driven, game plan for UK higher education, is important.

5.           Consider Undergraduate Study As A First Job

Young people have lots of reasons for going to university straight from school but it is difficult to understand why their experience should be seen as so removed from those who go straight to employment.  Both have to be disciplined, have to learn, want to enjoy their experience and are looking for a grounding that will allow them to progress.  As traditional undergraduate teaching is altered by blended learning, bite-sized credentials, online delivery, compressed time periods and 24/7 availability there is a moment to see work and study as part of a continuum.  I heard recently that learning ‘is a seventy year job’ – it’s a good way to think about education.     

 6.          Stress Tests and Plans For University Closures

There has been a lot of posturing around the potential for universities to fail but precious little sign that anybody has a plan for the eventuality or a way of understanding the risk level.  There should be absolute clarity around the responsibilities for understanding the potential for failure, managing/reviving a declining university and the way in which its closure or repurposing might be led.  In terms of the ‘common treasury’ there is an associated need to consider the broader interests of the sector and national/local economy by managing unfettered growth from universities unfairly advantaged by brand and financial muscle.